So long Shane, thanks for all the 'fush'

So Shane Jones is off. Retired from politics he says. Couldn’t give 100 percent to the cause so he did what he thought was best for the Party.

Shane Jones has always been a polarising figure and never more so when it comes to his dislike for us: “the Green Priests”. We’ve clashed on many issues, most notably his pro-oil and gas stance and his support for destructive fishing in the Pacific. We spoofed a Sealord video, highlighting the impact the company was having on our oceans. Much like an oil spill, his rage washed up on the telly as he leapt to the defence of his former paymasters who had given him 10 grand in 2011.

And now Parliament's resident firebrand is chasing the money once again and seemingly selling out to National.

So often Jones has tried to publicly re-write Labour party policy on protecting our oceans and land, squawking like a mollyhawk as he parroted the Government's economic mantra of ‘drill it’, ‘mine it’, ‘frack it’. He claimed that it would bring jobs and prosperity, yet it turns out that he was trousering money from the oil industry, an industry that lobbies government behind closed doors and that rakes in millions in subsidies from hard-working kiwis every single year.

It seems that he’s the only one up north that’s benefitting from oil slick politics.

And now we learn that the lure of a high paying job with National was too good to turn down. Key’s government is using taxpayer’s money to score political points against Labour as well as helping multi-national fishing companies exploit what’s left of our Pacific fish stocks.

Jones was respected for being a straight talking, up-front voice of the oppressed, down-trodden working class and poor. Yet he’s abandoned them to help line the pockets of big business and endorse a party that champions the world’s biggest polluters and plunderers at the expense of ordinary Kiwis.

A ‘man of the people’ would be backing our innovators and our clean energy heroes, who are struggling against a government that doesn't support them, that is stopping the tens of thousands of jobs and the billions and billions of dollars this industry could give our country.

So long Shane and thanks for all the fish. While you clearly enjoyed some of the perks of life under Labour, obviously things just weren’t blue enough for you. In our view, the economy is a little better off without you and your dinosaur ideas.

This blog is part of the #election2014 series. The series discusses New Zealand politics and the policies and, sometimes, lack of them, of our political parties. We hope that it provokes a bit of debate. You should probably view these blogs with a cup of tea in hand.

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